The Russian Radical is Wise After the Event

Published:Published October 18, 1906 inVestnik Zhizni, No. 12. Signed: N. Lenin.

      Published according to the text in the magazine.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1965,

      Moscow,Volume 11,

      pages236-240.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Tovarishchof September 20 publishes an extremely instructive
“conversation” between a Cadet and a certain more Left politician (a
Trudovik?) who expresses the point of view of
Mr. V. V. Kh—ov,[1]a contributor to that paper. This is how the radical takes the Cadet to task:

“Isit not the other way round?” he asks the Cadet, who was declaiming that
only confidence in one’s rights can make one strong. “Is it not strength
that makes one confident in the inviolability of right?” “The activities
of your Party ...
I regard as political quixotry.... You have been bolstering up
fictions.”

“Your constitutional illusions are to blame.... All that you said, and
your way of saying it, created undue confidence in the power of the Duma. And
this has certainly not facilitated the accumulation of social forces.... I
always wished when I heard your speeches, in and outside the Duma, that you
would stop treating the Duma as a constitutional body and regard it merely as an
organ of the public will that was in conflict with another will.... The
situation demanded most of all the organisation of our forces.... The Duma
should have exerted every effort to create for itself the apparatus that the law
had not given it.... You are exposing your Achilles’ heel—constitutional
illusions.... I always had occasion to be convinced of one thing alone, and that
is, how deeply constitutional fictions have eaten into your Party.... I am
scolding [you, the Cadets] because you had ceased to feel that you were one of
the combatants, and were acting, so to speak, as liquidators of the struggle.You proposed in a casual way what in other countries materialised as a
      result of a struggle between the rival forces.”

Aninstructive statement, is it not? Only it is a pity that our valiant
Bernsteinian “picked” a rather stupid Cadet to rounce in
“conversation”. There are some who are a bit marter.There are some
who closely watch Menshevik literature, particularly the writings of
Plekhanov. Such a Cadet would have answered his opponent differently.

Hewould have said: My dear Radical!Qui prouve trop, ne prouve rien.
He who proves too much, proves nothing.

And you are undoubtedly provingfar
too muchfrom the point of view of your own case. Did you not support us in
the Duma elections and fight the boycotters? Now these elections put you under
certainobligations. The keynote of these elections wasentirelywhat you now call “constitutional
illusions”

(fie, fie, have you been reading Bolshevik literature?). Why, I could show you, my
dear Radical, a nice passage—and more than one—in your own paperTovarishchwhere you (not necessarily you personally, but your Party
colleagues) assured the credulous Russian philistine that bad Cabinet Ministers
would have to resign if the party of “people’s freedom” won the
elections. What’s that? You don’t remember, my dear Radical? But we remember it
very well. You could not take part in elections, my dear Sir, unless you
promised to be loyal, unless you swore to use only constitutional methods of
struggle. As for us, the party of people’s freedom, we make promises solely in
order to carry them out, and for no other reason!

Yousay we had too much faith in the power of the Duma, that this did not help
us to accumulate “our own” forces? But for God’s sake read
Plekhanov, whom you certainly regard as an authority. After all, it is you, your
colleagues, and not the Cadets, who are fond of stating in private conversation
that they are really quite Social-Democrats in all respects and would have
declared themselves such if ... if the Social-Democrats as a whole had entirely
adopted Plekhanov’s standpoint. And was it not Plekhanov who said at the Unity
Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party that only anarchists can
shout about constitutional illusions? Did not Plekhanov move a resolution in
whichthe Duma was not only referred to as apower—and
    this title was confirmed by the Unity Congress of the
    Social-Democrats!!—but as a power “created by the tsar
    himself and sanctioned by
    law”? Did not Plekhanov himself write in the esteemed organ of the
    Mensheviks–and you gentlemen ofNasha Zhiznhave always praised
    these tendencies of the Mensheviks!—that constructive work in the
    Duma has the most agitational effect? And you applauded Plekhanov; in the
    press you admired his “courage” (yes, that is exactly how you
    expressed it) in combating “Blanquism”! You have not managed,
    literally, to wear out your shoes since that happened, and yet you
    yourselves are already repeating these deplorable Blanquist fallacies!!

Ifthe Cadet had defended himself like this, his defence would have been an
attack, and the radical would have been utterly discomfited....

Byhis present guerrilla attack on constitutional illusions this radical
reminds us of the hero of the popular epic who greeted a funeral procession with
the cry: “Many happy returns of the day.” Just think: when was the
struggle against constitutional illusions a vital and urgent necessity?
Obviously, when they were flourishing and could, and in fact did, causewidespreadharm by tempting the “small fry”. In other
words, when the masses might have imagined, andcould not but imagine,
that there was a constitution, whereas there was none at all. This was exactly
the situation during the elections to the First Duma and while the Duma was
sitting, i.e., from March to June 1906. It was then that constitutional
illusions causedwidespreadharm. At that time, however, only the
Bolshevik Social-Democrats systematically combated them, swimming against the
stream. At that time Kh—ov and other contributors to“Nasha
Zhizn” fosteredthese illusions, “warring” with the
Bolsheviks, and scolding them for their sharp criticism of the Cadets.

Now,the Duma is dissolved. The Cadets are defeated. No one even imagines that
there is such a thing as a constitution. Now even not very noble animals may
kick the Cadets (“I scold them”—see the “conversation”) and
curse constitutional illusions at every fifth word. Ah, my dear Radicals! Your
action comes too late!

Thecase of Kh—ov & Co. provides an illuminating example of how
people who regard themselves as enlightened politicians, and even as
free.thinkers or radicals, drift with the tide, helpless and without
convictions, flabby and powerless. From March to June 1906 they fostered
constitutional illusions, calling the Duma a power, trailing behind the Cadets,
turning up their noses disdainfully at ruthless criticism of this, then
fashionable, party. In September 1906 they “scold” the Cadets and
“war” against constitutional illusions without realising that they
are lagging behind again, that this is not enough now, and that what is needed
is a direct call for a definite (determined by the preceding course of
historical development) form of revolutionary struggle.

Itwould be well if the example of these gentlemen taught the Russian
intelligentsia, which so prolifically produces such jelly-fish, to realise how
harmful opportunism is. Very often this word is wrongly regarded as
“merely a term of abuse” and no attempt is made to grasp its
meaning. The opportunist does not betray his party, he does not act as a
traitor, he does not desert it. He continues to serve it sincerely and
zealously. But his typical and characteristic trait is that he yields to the
mood of the moment, he is unable to resist what is fashionable, he is
politically short sighted and spineless. Opportunism means sacrificing the
permanent and essential interests of the party to momentary, transient and minor
interests. A slight revival of industry, a relative improvement in trade and a
slight revival of bourgeois liberalism, and the opportunist begins to shout:

Don’t frighten the bourgeoisie away, don’t fight shy of it, drop your
“phrase-mongering” about social revolution! The Duma has assembled,
a police-constitutional “spring” is in the air—and lo! the
opportunist is already calling the Duma a power, hastening to curse the
“fatal” boycott and hurrying forward with the slogan: support the
demand for a Duma, i.e., a Cadet, Cabinet. As soon as the tide turns, the
opportunist, just as sincerely, and just as inopportunely, begins to
“scold” the Cadets and demolish constitutional illusions.

Ifsuch moods characteristic of the intelligentsia prevail it
will be impossible to adopt a consistent policy worthy ofa genuinely revolutionary class and to pursue it steadfastly through all minor
      deviations and waverings so as to prepare for a selflessly bold and
      determined battle with the enemy. That is why the class-conscious
      proletariat must be critical of the intelligentsia which is coming over
      to its side and must learn to wage a ruthless struggle against opportunism
      in politics.

[1]V. V. Kh—ovis V. V. Khizhnyakov.